“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

–Emma Lazarus, inscribed on the Statue of Liberty

Caroline Shaw is one of the most performed living composers in the world. The creative and collaborative artist is a multiple GRAMMY Award winner and the youngest person to win a Pulitzer Prize in music.

Shaw’s To the Hands is a gentle and intimate exploration of the suffering of refugees and of our role in their healing. In the midst of the piece the vocalization of a litany of numbers—the numbers of displaced persons seeking asylum—provides a stark and powerful message. Shaw’s work resolves into an affirming, melodic message of love and acceptance, culminating with the thought-provoking image of hands; hands that are wounded and hands that are open, beckoning and strong.

“‘Ever ever will I hold you, ever ever will I enfold you.’

These could be the words of Christ, or of a parent or friend or lover, or even of a nation.”

–Caroline Shaw

In the style of a requiem and written as a healing response to his mother’s death, Morten Lauridsen’s beautiful Lux Aeterna explores the balance of life and death that all people navigate, culminating in a lush, loving embrace. Lauridsen’s text and music encourages us to let light shine perpetually on and through those who have gone before us.

This music is love and light in sound.

The program includes the world premiere of the 2025 Stephen Paulus Emerging Composers Competition winning piece with a setting of an American poet writing of the immigrant experience.